Background: Community-based health insurance schemes are becoming increasingly recognized as a potential strategy to achieve universal health coverage in developing countries. Despite great efforts to improve accessibility to modern health-care services in the past two decades, in Ethiopia, utilization of health-care services have remained very low. Given the financial barriers of the poor households and lack of sustainable health-care financing mechanisms in the country has been recognized to be major factors, the country has implemented community-based health insurance in piloted regions of Ethiopia aiming to improve utilization of health-care services by removing financial barriers. However, there is a dearth of literature regarding the effect of the implemented insurance scheme on the utilization of health-care services. Objective: To analyze the effects of a community-based health insurance scheme on the utilization of health-care services in Yirgalem town, southern Ethiopia. Methods: The study used both a quantitative and qualitative mixed approach using a comparative cross-sectional study design for a quantitative part using a randomly selected sample of 405 (135 member and 270 non-member) household heads. To complement the findings from the household survey, focus group discussions were used. Multivariate logistic regression was employed to identify the effect of community-based health insurance on health-care utilization. Results: The study reveals that community-based health insurance member households were about three times more likely to utilize outpatient care than their non-member counterparts [AOR: 2931; 95% CI (1.039, 7.929); p-value=0.042]. Conclusion: Community-based health insurance is an effective tool to increase utilization of health-care services and provide the scheme to member households.

Introduction Data on the effect of health aid on the health status in developing countries are inconclusive. Moreover, studies on this issue in sub-Saharan Africa are scarce. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the effect of health development aid in sub-Saharan Africa. Methods Using panel data analytic method, as well as infant mortality rate as a proxy for health status, this study examines the effect of health aid on infant mortality rate in sub-Saharan Africa. The panel was constructed from data on 43 countries for the period 1990–2010. Fixed effect, random effect, and first difference generalized method of moments estimator were used for estimation. Results Health development aid has a statistically significant positive effect. A 1% increase of health development assistance per capita saves the lives of two infants per 1,000 live births ( P =0.000) in the region. Conclusion Contrary to health aid pessimists’ view, this study observes the fact that health development assistance has strong favorable effect in improving health status in sub-Saharan Africa.

Background Electronic medical recording system is one of the information technologies that has a proven benefit to improve the quality of health service. Readiness assessment is one of the recommended steps to be taken prior to implementing electronic medical recording system to reduce the probability of failure. Objective To determine the level of health professional readiness to implement Electronic medical recording system and associated factors in public general hospitals of Sidama region, 2022. Methodology A cross-sectional study design complemented with qualitative study was employed at three public general hospitals in Sidama region on a sample of 306 participants. A pretested self-administered questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data and in-depth interview was used for the qualitative study. Bivariate and multivariate Binary logistics regression was performed to determine predictors of readiness at α = 0.05, using an odds ratio and 95% confidence interval. Thematic analysis was done for qualitative data collected through in-depth interview. Result The overall readiness for health professionals was 36.5%. Of the study participants, 201 (73.4%) were computer literate, 176(64.23%) had good knowledge, and 204 (74.45%) had favorable attitude towards EMR. Only 31 participants had previous training (11.3%), while 64 (23%) had previous experience. EMR knowledge (AOR = 3.332; 95%CI: (1.662, 6.682)) and attitude towards electronic medical recording (AOR = 2.432; 95%CI: (1.146, 5.159)) were statistically significant predictors of readiness to implement electronic medical recording. Qualitative analysis has revealed lack of training, ease of use concerns, information security concerns, and perceived inadequacy of infrastructures including internet connectivity and electricity as common barriers for health professional readiness to implement EMR. Conclusion Health professionals’ readiness in this study was low. Capacity building efforts to increase the awareness and skills of health professionals should be done before implementing the system.

Adherence to antiepileptic drug therapy in people with epilepsy is critical for seizure control. Poor adherence to epilepsy treatment, on the other hand, is recognized as a worldwide problem, particularly in developing countries such as Ethiopia. As a result, the current study seeks to ascertain patients’ adherence to antiepileptic medications and the factors that influence it at Hawassa University Comprehensive Specialized Hospital in Southern Ethiopia. From February 1 to October 15, 2017, 187 people with epilepsy who were on followup at Hawassa University Comprehensive Specialized Hospital underwent a hospitalbased retrospective medical review. Adherence was measured using Morisky Medication Scale-8. Data was entered and analyzed using the soft ware Statistical package for social sciences version 20. The results were summarized using cross-tabulations and frequency tables. While binary logistic regression was used to analyze factors associated with adherence to antiepileptic drug therapy, significance was declared at p<0.05. According to the findings of the current study, about nineteen percent of the study participants were nonadherent to their treatment. Compared to patients with monthly income of less than 1000.00 ETB, those who earn>3000.00 ETB [AOR=0.164, 95% CI (0.038: 0.702)] and those with monthly income between 2000 and 3000 ETB [AOR=0.110, 95%CI (0.026:0.461)] [AOR=0.110, 95% CI (0.026:0.461)] are less likely associated with non-adherent to antiepileptic drugs (P<0.05). Likewise, patients who perceived epilepsy as psychiatric disorder [AOR= 0.250, 95%CI (0.087: 0.716)] compared to those who perceive it as neurologic, and those patients with seizure free period of less than one year [AOR= 0.206, 95%CI(0.076:0.562)] compared to those with seizure free period of more than one year are found to be less non adherent (p<0.05).

Background: Whether health aid has a positive, negative, or no effect on the health status of recipient countries is controversial. The current paper examines the long-run effect of health aid on health status in low-income countries. Methods: The long-run health function was estimated using infant mortality as a proxy for health status and panel data constructed from 34 low-income countries for the period of 2000-2017. For the estimation, Fixed Effect, Random Effect, and Hausman-Taylor estimators were employed. Results: The estimation results indicate that health aid has a beneficial and statistically significant long-run effect on the health status of low-income countries: doubling health aid saves the lives of 4 infants per 1000 live births in the long run. Conclusion: The findings of this study show that health aid could be one of the best interim tools with which the health status of low-income groups could get improved and helps to meet the target of Universal Health Coverage. Despite the favorable effect of health aid observed in this study, recipient countries need to find ways of promoting surrogate domestic health financing systems, as external assistance cannot be an everlasting means of improving population health.